PHOTO ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 31, from Holt Point to the old Kulka farm, April 11, 2010






Blackflies. It seems a little early but there's no mistaking them.



The little peninsula that is home to the Holt place is configured in such a way as to offer the house views in every direction. Straight ahead to North Haven, east to Calderwood Neck, south all the way down Mill River and west to the other side of Seal Cove. It's quite a spot and another that holds particular memories.

When I was in high school, I answered an ad asking for a seasonal handyman out in this area. The gracious but naive summer lady to whom I reported for an interview found me satisfactory, hired me on the spot and ran me through my responsibilities, mowing the lawn, a little painting, bailing out boats, that sort of thing but then she added that I'd be expected to go into town every day for the mail and supplies and I was to use 'the Jeep' on those occasions. That was really exciting since the 46 Willys was a sweet ride in mint condition and particularly since I had no license, not even a permit. As an added bonus she said there was beer in the spare fridge in the entry and I was to help myself whenever I felt the need to refresh myself. She really had no sense that I was as young as I was; had she only not assigned me the task of re-finishing the hull of her prized North Haven Dinghy I'd have been sitting pretty that summer but once I'd gone to work on the hull with a disc sander and a handful of #36 discs my shortlived career was over.

At the entrance to Dyer's Pond, one of the smallest of Vinalhaven's ten or so significant firths, is the remains of an old mill site. Wherever there are rapids, the Basin, Crockett River, Mill pond, Carver's Pond, Old Harbor Pond, Mill Creek and here at Dyers Pond there will almost surely be evidence of an effort having been made to harness the power. Some were more successful than others.

In nearly all these places too the upland was salt marsh and the remains of dams in these areas reflect efforts to either hold the incoming tides at bay to protect the grassland for pasture perhaps or to retain the fresh water that inevitably feeds each of these inland waterways.

Next leg, this weekend, from the Kulka farm to Carrying Place Bridge, then on to Calderwood Neck.